你是社交活动的变色龙吗?

生活中我们拥有的最大财富就是我们的个性。无论是一个发自内心的微笑，一种个性鲜明的风格，一份独具特色的幽默感，一颗深厚博大的同情心，一类特殊的才能或者是我们看世界的一种方式——所有这些都为我们贴上了个性的标签。

我注意到我们有时候也会忘了自己的个性，努力想要融入周围的世界。我们像变色龙一样行事，总是希望与周围的环境保持高度的一致。对于变色龙来说，这叫做保护色，对我们也是这样吗？

One of the biggest treasures that we have in life is our individuality. Whether it is an original smile, an extraordinary sense of style, peculiar humor, deep compassion, special talent or the way we see the world – all these things make us who we are.

I noticed that sometimes we forget about our individuality and try to blend in with our surroundings. We act like chameleons who want to look exactly the same as their environment. For chameleons this is a defense strategy, is it the same for us?

Sometimes it takes a lot of effort and courage to maintain our individuality no matter what. We risk being laughed at, we risk losing friends or a job, we risk our relationships, we risk being misunderstood and feeling like losers.

You do not think about it until you meet a perfect guy or girl who you want to date and who does not support your beliefs (anything from religion to nutrition.) You do not think about it until you get a new job where everybody thinks that your style is ridiculous (and constantly mentions it to you.) You do not think about it until you get to a party where nobody understands your jokes and looks at you like you are an alien from another planet. You do not think about it until you move to a new country (and sometimes even a city) where everything is so different from what you are used to. At that point your only desire is to blend in and not to stick out like a sore thumb.

I think this is a built-in survival instinct that makes us blend in and lose our individuality. Unfortunately, when we lose our individuality we also lose happiness in life. We lose that inner balance that keeps us afloat and lets us withstand any of life's storms.

I didn't realize it until I moved to the US. For the first few months I was fascinated with the culture and with everything that this country had to offer. I wanted to embrace it all and to become as natural in this environment as possible. I tried to dress like an American girl, I was speaking only English in public places (my husband is fluent in Russian, so most of the time we speak English and Russian 50/50) and I tried my best to act like an American. After a few more months I understood that I was not happy with whom I became. I didn't want to blend in anymore and I was happy to show my individuality (cultural in my case) anywhere I went.